Higher Fee Structure For International Students At IITs

The Indian Institutes of Technology are having a higher fee structure for international students which means foreign students signing up to study at the IITs will have to shell out more money for their fees.

The IIT council is said to double the fee rate for international students from the current rate which is about US$4,000.

The fee structure for international students at the IITs are being revised after a decade, it was altered last in the year 2004 when the tuition fee for domestic candidates was Rs 50,000.

The fee hike for international students at the IITs is attributed to the inflation in expenditure the schools have to bear on every student.

"It is expected that international students at least pay the bill that is incurred on their education. This was discussed among directors and we expect the IIT Council to take up this matter," said an IIT head. As per a committee's findings, the IITs spend Rs 5.5 lakh on every candidate.

According to the IIT panel's decision, the annual fee for B.Tech programme for domestic studnets was increased from Rs 90,000 to Rs 2 lakh. Also, the IITs are looking to attract more international students to join the centrally funded techncical institutes across the country.

With the aim to attract more international students to join the IITs and other centrally funded institutions, IIT JEE entrance examination will be conducted abroad from the next academic year. The IIT JEE will be widely held in all the SAARC nations except Pakistan along with Singapore and the UAE. [Read the full story here]

It is still unknown about the number of centres that will be set up in each of these locations for the JEE 2017.

The seats for foreign nationals will be additional or supernumerary and would not reduce the seats available to the Indian students said officials.

The test will be a paper-pencil exam, same as the one held at home in India. "The IITs have realized the richness that diversity brings to the classroom and this move will be a starting point for us to be truly global," said a faculty member from IIT Delhi.

IIT Bombay was identified as the national coordinator for the drive to attract foreign students. The institute have identified and informed the countries and local institutes for conducting GATE and JEE with the help of the Indian embassies there. [GATE 2017 Exam Details]